Jacqueline Kory-Westlund

Jacqueline Kory-Westlund
Research Scholar
Educational Technology, Psychology
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Dr. Jacqueline Kory-Westlund is the author of Grad School Life: Surviving and Thriving Beyond Coursework and Research (Feb 2024, Columbia University Press), a guide to making the most of your time in grad school, keeping up your personal life, and preparing for your career—in academia, or beyond.

She has a multidisciplinary background with expertise in cognitive science, computer science, psychology, education, robotics, art, and ethics. She holds a PhD and MS from the MIT Media Lab, and a BA from Vassar College. Her specialty is being able to talk and work across disciplines—she builds bridges.

Dr. Kory-Westlund's research has centered on human-robot interaction (HRI), educational technology, and young children's learning. For example, she has explored how social robots can be used to engage and support children in learning, how to create more effective robotic learning companions (e.g., with relational AI), how children understand and empathize with social robots, what long-term interactions with robots are like, and the ethics of using social robots in children's lives. She is interested in how technology is used in the "real world" to facilitate learning (as opposed to during experimental studies under the supervision of researchers), especially by different populations (e.g., by families and homeschoolers vs. in schools). She is intrigued by the connections between people's relationships and their learning, and how technology can be used to encourage human flourishing.

Motivating Dr. Kory-Westlund's work are broader questions about the nature of personal identity, how people understand and perceive others, and the importance of empathy, relationships, and social-emotional skills in learning.

To learn more, visit:
Personal: https://jakory.com/
Blog: https://deliberateowl.com/
Art & Design: https://stonecrop.studio/

Social Robots, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Education, Human-Robot Interaction, Robot Ethics